The present invention relates generally to systems for bicycle rentals, and more particularly, to an unattended, automated system for rental of bicycles.
Heretofore, the rental of bicycles has been accomplished by a manual operation. In such operations, the rental operator requires a central location that has enough space to accommodate a large inventory of bicycles. The rental is paid for by the renter by way of either a cash payment or a charge to a credit card. In either instance, the payment operation is entirely manual. The bicycle vendor must maintain a central location that has a large enough space to hold the inventory, which is expensive and costly, as well as employ manual labor at the central location to process rental transactions and to distribute and/or retrieve bicycles.
An automated bicycle rental station will eliminate the need for the large central location and eliminate much, if not all, of the labor costs associated with a manned operation. The prior art does not disclose or suggest any automated bicycle rental stations present. At best, the prior art includes some locking bicycle racks in the prior art that serve as bicycles "parking lots", but do not serve as automated rental facilities wherein one or more bicycles may be rented 24 hours a day.
Examples of such prior art are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,787, issued Feb. 28, 1994 to Cook et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,167, issued May 16, 1989 to Lassche. Both of these patents utilize lockable bicycle racks in which a user locks his/her bicycle in the rack for a preselected amount of time. When the users return to these racks, they insert a bicycle "parking fee" payment in the form of deposited coins. When the payment is made, the bicycle is then released from the rack. Not only are both of these devices limited to the use of coins, thereby requiring labor to remove the coins deposited therein, but they also include complex locking mechanisms. Moreover and most importantly, neither of these prior art devices constitutes an automated bicycle rental station.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,538 that issued Jan. 11, 1994 to Ainsworth et al. describes another bicycle "parking lot" that includes a locking bicycle rack that does not accept coins as payment, but instead employs an electronic controller that accepts a debit card as payment. The locking mechanism employed by the Ainsworth et al. bicycle parking lot is complex and does not lend itself to a modular nature which would permit expansion or reduction at remote stations based upon the area usage. Inasmuch as Ainsworth et al. describes only a bicycle "parking lot", there is no disclosure or suggestion as to how to monitor any inventory of rental bicycles.
The present invention is directed to an automated system that overcomes two primary disadvantages of the typical bicycle rental station. Namely, it avoids the need for a central location with a large inventory space, and it performs the rental transaction in an automated manner, thereby dispensing with the need and cost for a clerk to operate the system at the rental location.
Other advantages of the systems of the invention include a self-contained remote bicycle rental station that can be installed in regions of high bicycle usage in open areas such as parks and near museums and in enclosed areas, such as parking garages of hotels or even by hotels and near bicycle trails or paths. The station includes a control component and a bicycle rental rack component, with the operation of the rental rack being controlled by the control component. The rental rack component is modular in nature, meaning that it may be fabricated in discrete sections that accommodate a preselected number of bicycles, such as 5 or 10 bicycles, so that multiple modules may be assembled to or taken from existing rental stations to increase or decrease the number of bicycles each rental station holds as inventory based upon usage patterns. Another advantage that the present invention offers over the prior art is that it permits bicycles to be rented at one location and returned at another location.